Northern Grep - The blog of Shaun Holt

Ah! So there you are

For now the winter is past,
the rains are over and gone;
the flowers appear in the countryside;
the time is coming when the birds will sing.

Song of Songs Chapter2v11

I know it has been a long time and I am not usually given to quoting passages from the Bible. The words above sum up so much about the past three (almost four) months. Changes are starting to occur and the majority of them are for the better.

• My professional life is a whole lot better
• My personal (family) life just gets better
• The New Labour project is in its death throes
• The forces of good are on the rise
• Doncaster Rovers start next football season in the Championship

I have also offloaded some of the unnecessary commitments in my life. I suppose this is a form of life laundry or the equivalent of taking surplus items to a charity shop as they would be better suited for someone else.

This has been a worthwhile exercise. For now I’m back with a refreshed but robust set of priorities.

Do we hate Donny?

Yesterday I was in a pub in Harrogate watching the League One promotion play off between Doncaster Rovers and Leeds United. I am from Doncaster and have been to watch Doncaster Rovers many more times than I have Leeds United.

I supported Doncaster when they were in the conference but being a ‘Donny’ person I have always supported Leeds United. This past season has been hard for people like myself as Leeds and Doncaster have been rivals in the same division.

I never thought I’d hear some of the usual Leeds terrace chants have the word Donny in them (I’m more used to hearing Chelsea or Man United aka ’scum’ as Man U are affectionately known to Leeds Utd fans). Well I heard it yesterday.

Doncaster went on to win the match 1 - 0 and they thoroughly deserved it. Well done Doncaster Rovers - may your finances be sound and your VIP lounge attract quality people.

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Puppy Power

The latest edition of Linux Magazine has a review of Puppy Linux. This distro is project managed by a Scundog member (Rob gave a talk and demo at the last meeting). If you have recycled hardware this is the ideal operating system to install. It is good to see the big publications picking up on PUPPY.

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Small World - Big message

Did you read my blog post of yesterday? Well yesterday afternoon my parents-in-law came to visit. Earlier that day they had been to Leeds Met University where they had delivered a very special bouquet. The university had commissioned them (as successful florists in this region) to produce a bouquet for a presentation to the great grand daughter of Mahatma Gandhi! It fell to me to explain the significance of 30th Jan 2008. What a coincidence! If only they’d had the time to read my blog

Most urban landscapes and auto-routes are dotted with large billboard advertising pushing everything from iPods to the latest make of car. I often make use of the Supertram when I’m working in Sheffield. The route I travel on passes the Parkhill Flats in Sheffield. These flats have a colourful history that has culminated in them being designated as Grade II listed structures. This is a designation given to buildings in the UK that are of special interest and therefore protected from demolition or extraordinary changes. The ParkHill flats constitute the largest listed building in the UK.

Well Fiat have obviously struck a deal with a large quantity of the tenants as they are using this vast frontage in a novel way (see below - forgive the quality the tram was moving at speed :-)) .

This might be a first - It is certainly eye catching and an interesting development in product placement.

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High water

Yesterday I was working in Sheffield so was unable to attend our local Post Office closing (for the final time) at 1pm. I have lived in this community on and off for most of my life and the Post Office has always been there. Despite a campaign and alleged consultation process (of which I participated) the Post Office was slated for closure.

Without doubt this is a sad day for the village and more importantly the good people who ran it so well. This village now only has the primary school and village hall as a glue to hold together its sense of community. I do believe this closure will have a negative effect on the social cohesion of this village and contribute further to the decline of our good, English society in this area. In effect, having young children will become the main social networking enabler in this village.

On my way home from work I managed to drop in at the Boston Park site of the local nature reserve. I have never seen such an abundance of surface water (see below) and over at the Ten Acre Lake system one of the viewing platforms is again submerged.

Today is also the sixtieth anniversary of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. As a fan of what ifs I do wonder what would have happened if Nathuram Gadse had missed.

Mozilla Firefox, according to this article, has also captured 30% of the browser usage statistic in Europe - Get in there:-)

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